Puppetworks in Brooklyn Remains an Institution

Slide Show | Worlds of Wonderment, on a String Puppetworks, in Park Slope, Brooklyn, was founded in 1991, has been a neighborhood institution ever since.

Michelle V. Agins / The New York Times

October 17, 2014

Neighborhood Joint

By GILI MALINSKY

On a recent morning, a first-grade class from Public School 10 sat in a cluster on mats near the marionette stage at Puppetworks. The children talked excitedly among themselves, their yellow P.S. 10 T-shirts a pretty good match for the Puppetworks aesthetic (Kermit-green walls, red and green benches). Dozens of marionettes hung around the theater, their wooden noses slightly dulled from years of use.

“It’s show time!” said Jessica Abrego, the 26-year-old puppeteer standing in front of the class. Had anyone been to Puppetworks before, she asked. “I’ve been here four times!” said one first grader. What were these puppets called? “Marionettes!” said another. What stories did they recognize from the puppets hanging on the walls? “The Wizard of Oz,” one said. “Alice in Wonderland!” said a second. “Hansel and Gretel!” a third chimed in. Ms. Abrego covered theater etiquette: What do we do when the curtains close? (Clap!) Do we laugh small and quiet or big and sloppy? (Both are acceptable.) Then she headed backstage to start the show, a double feature: “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and “The Snow Queen.”

With the school year just underway, it was early in Puppetworks’ busy season, but Ms. Abrego and her colleagues were quite familiar with the repertory, which reflects the vision of Nicolas Coppola, a lifelong puppeteer who founded the theater 34 years ago.

Throughout the 1980s, Mr. Coppola was on the road with another company, but touring was becoming a financially tricky proposition. So he began to search for a permanent home for Puppetworks. It opened on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Fourth Street in 1991, and has been a neighborhood institution ever since. Today, Mr. Coppola is the artistic director.

A majority of the theater’s audience arrives on field trips and class visits like the one from P.S. 10, with the theater’s three puppeteers performing two shows a day for classes ranging from prekindergarten to fifth grade. On the weekends, Puppetworks puts on public shows. “From January to March, generally, we have our biggest crowds,” said the weekend box-office man, Lawrence Rush, 76. On weekend afternoons, the theater is devoted to birthday parties ($450 for two and a half hours — not bad for Park Slope).

As popular as the parties are, Puppetworks takes its art quite seriously. The theater cycles through a repertoire of 15 stories, all of them based on popular children’s literature and folklore, only occasionally switching them up or adding new ones.

A puppeteer named Jeremy Kerr, 37, told the story of a girl intent on having an “Alice in Wonderland” party. Her birthday was in October, but the “Alice” puppets would not be used until the following year. That turned out to be fine with the girl, who seemed to be just as serious about puppetry as the theater is.

“She waited and had her birthday party in late February,” Mr. Kerr said.

One Saturday a few months back, Chandana Sikund brought her two nephews, Manav, 6, and Armaan, 7, who were visiting from out of town, to a show. Ms. Sikund lives in the neighborhood and had heard of Puppetworks. As a child, she was fascinated with puppets and had a theater herself. The boys loved it. “They were the loudest,” she said.

Also attending that day was the actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, 36, who had come with her 2-year-old daughter, Gloria Ray. Ms. Gyllenhaal first came to the theater with her eldest daughter and now visits a few times a year. The place reminds her of shows she saw as a girl growing up in Los Angeles.